Consensus vs Elicit vs Semantic Scholar vs Perplexity AI
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Consensus
AI search engine that shows what the research says
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Elicit
AI literature search, extraction and systematic reviews with sentence-...
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Semantic Scholar
Free AI-assisted academic search across 200M+ papers, from Ai2
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Perplexity AI
Answer engine that cites its sources, now with a browser and an agent
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.3 / 10 | 7.6 / 10 | 8 / 10 | 8.4 / 10 |
| Capability | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium | Free | Freemium |
| Free tier | Basic paper search, 10 Pro messages and up to 3 Deep reviews a month | Basic: unlimited search of 138M+ papers, unlimited summaries and full-text paper chat, Zotero import; limited Research Agent and Reports usage | Search, paper pages, TLDRs (CS/biomed), Semantic Reader, alerts, feeds and the API are free; an API key gives 1 request/sec | Free plan: answers with citations and basic AI models, for limited daily usage |
| Paid from | Pro $12/mo billed annually ($20 monthly); Deep $45/mo annually ($65 monthly) | From $11/month (academic Plus billed yearly, or $19 monthly); industry Pro $49/month yearly | — | $20/month or $200/year (Pro); Max $200/month or $2,000/year |
| Has API | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | 500k+ users | 200k+ researchers | 50m+ monthly visits | 30M+ standalone monthly active users (100M+ across all products, 2026) |
| Founded | 2021 | 2020 | 2015 | 2022 |
| Maker | Eric Olson, Christian Salem | Andreas Stuhlmuller | Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) | Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski |
| Verdict | Consensus answers research questions from academic literature rather than the open web: a cited synthesis, natural-language filters for population, design and time frame, and a Consensus Meter showing how far studies agr... |
Elicit is the most complete AI tool for structured literature work: search, screening, extraction tables and cited reports in one place, with every claim tied to a source sentence. Published studies support it as a secon... |
Semantic Scholar remains one of the best free tools for finding and tracing academic literature, with excellent citation data and a generous free API that other research tools build on. Its AI features are narrower than... |
Perplexity is still the quickest way to get a sourced answer: each reply links to the pages behind it, so verification takes seconds. Pro at $20 a month adds Deep Research, model choice and Computer credits; Max at $200... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.